October’s most in-demand office holders in Ottawa
Randy Boissonnault, Randy Hoback, Matt Jeneroux, Tony Baldinelli, Samir Kassam (NRCan), Chris Padfield (PCO)
Lobbying lubricates the gears of our country’s legislative and regulatory machinery, shaping the contours of laws and rules that govern the business environment. That is why Queen Street Analytics provides monthly updates on the most lobbied Ministers, MPs and civil servants.
Table of Contents:
October’s most lobbied ministers
October’s most lobbied MPs
October’s most lobbied DPOHs, by agency
Queen Street Analytics provides a monthly high-level overview of the most lobbied Ministers, MPs, and civil servants. If your organization has more specific needs, such as:
accessing data-driven recommendations on which civil servants and MPs to engage with on an issue
receiving email updates on which MPs and DPOHs are engaging with newly arising issues
accessing breakdowns of who else is talking to the same officials on the same issues, and
consider subscribing to LobbyIQ’s GR-tracking package.
0. The 30,00 Foot View
With just under 4,400 filings, this October was a busy month in terms of overall lobbying activity, as can be readily seen in Exhibit 1, taken from LobbyIQ’s open-access dashboard.
1. October’s most lobbied cabinet members
Exhibit 2 lists the cabinet ministers who took the most meetings with lobbyists in October, and, for context, their trailing twelve month (TTM) average of meetings. The biggest outlier with unusually high meeting activity was Randy Boissonnault, who has since been mired in scandal, forcing him to step down from his ministerial post.
2. October’s most lobbied MPs
Exhibit 3 and 4 list the MPs with the most lobby communications and meetings in October. One thing that stands out is that many MPs had 3x, 4x, or more times as many meetings in October as their previous twelve-month (TTM) would have suggested. While October was a busy month, as seen in Exhibit 1, it was at most twice as busy as the average month over the previous twelve months. This indicates the pattern is more so explained by October-lobbying being more targeted at MPs than at civil servants. As we will see, this is particularly true for the Conservative MPs.
Randy Hoback (Prince Albert) stood out as October’s most active MP when it came to meeting with lobbyists.
At a higher level, what stands out in Exhibits 3 and 4 overall is that lobbying activity has been really pivoting towards Conservative and away from Liberal MPs in recent months, with only two Liberals among the top-20 most lobbied MPs in October. Half a year ago, things looked quite different on the Hill when it came to which party’s MPs attracted the most lobbyist attention:
3. October’s Most Lobbied Civil Servants, by Agency
The largest number of lobby-communications occurs at the level of the bureaucracy, with civil servants (designated public office holders / DPOHs). Exhibit 5 lists the 30 busiest DPOHs in October, organized by their agencies. TTM reports on their previous twelve-month meetings-average (TTM) and the Rank-field ranks them according to the number of meetings taken in October.
Chris Padfield was very busy in October and appears to be taking some of the load off Paul Halucha at the PCO.
However, the busiest civil servant in October was NRCan’s Director of Policy Samir Kassam, who, as Exhibit 6 shows, has been taking an increasingly more important role over the last six months.
This concludes today’s issue on October’s most lobbied ministers, MPs, and civil servants.